We reported the result of our study on the impact of Large-Scale Social Restriction (LSSR) phases due to the COVID-19 outbreak on the air quality in Jakarta. Specifically, this study covered the change of Air Quality Index (AQI) based on five pollutants, PM10, SO2, CO, O3, and NO2, contained in Jakarta's air before and during LSSR. The AQI data were provided by the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Indonesia, from January 2019 to December 2020 at five different locations in Jakarta, with missing data for March and September 2020 due to unknown reasons. These data were grouped into the period before the LSSR from January 2019 to February 2020 and the period during LSSR from April 2020 to December 2020. In order to measure the change in the air quality of Jakarta before and during LSSR, we ran a chi-squared test to the AQI for each location and LSSR phase as well as paired one-sided t-test for the seasonal trend. The result of this study showed that, in general, LSSR improved the air quality of Jakarta. The improvement was mainly contributed by reduced transportation activities that were induced by LSSR. Further analysis on the seasonal pollutants trend showed a variation of AQI improvement in each phase due to their unique characteristics.


The term 'inversion' to describe an inverted basin was first used by Glennie & Boegner (1981) although inverted basins had been recognized many years before e.g. Lamplugh (1920) and Stille (1924). During this meeting it became apparent that the application of the term had broadened to such an extent that the understanding of 'inversion' in the petroleum industry was incompatible with much of the current usage. The discussion that follows illustrates many of the points of disagreement, perhaps the most contentious of which is the use of the term 'negative inversion' although this was also introduced by Glennie & Boegner (1981). Most of the discussion was presented verbally at the meeting and was recorded, transcribed and returned to speakers for their corrections. In addition, a number of written contributions were received. All contributions to the discussion have been edited as gently as possible so as to retain the exact meaning intended by the contributor. All contributors are included as co-authors in this discussion article but clearly this does not mean that individuals necessarily accept all the points made by other contributors. The editors have identified individual contributions. The discussion commenced with some proposals by the editors which are briefly reproduced here. This discussion article concludes with a considered revision of the proposals on nomenclature which aims to satisfy some of the shortcomings identified in the discussions. Our initial definition of inversion relied on the concept of regional elevation. The regional elevation of a marker horizon is the structural elevation of the horizon


Since 1995 the offshoring of administrative, technical and software services to India has rapidly evolved from an
insignificant curiosity only studied by a few scholars of international development to a major issue discussed by many in the
United States and Western Europe. India's position has expanded and evolved in terms of numbers of employees, the
sophistication or value-added of the work performed, and the types of service activities. Drawing upon more than 100
interviews conducted in India in 2004, 2005, and 2006 and presentations by executives at two Sloan Foundation funded
conferences in 2005 and 2006, this paper argues that two separate but related ecosystems have recently emerged in India to
provide services and, more recently, high technology products for the global economy. The first ecosystem is for service
provision. Here we suggest that today the service provision ecosystem is so sophisticated that it can endogenously create
new service offerings and attract overseas firms to transfer new activities in new industry verticals. The second ecosystem,
which is smaller and only recently emergent, is gestating new venture capital-financed, high technology startups. We
provide a typology of these firms and suggest that some have bi-national roots linked to the U.S. Silicon Valley. We explore
the possibility that the leading Indian information technology systems integrators may have created a new business model
that is superior to that of the incumbent global market leaders such as IBM, EDS, and Accenture. Finally, we provide
insight into the evolutionary trajectory of the Indian offshore service provision infrastructure suggesting that it will only
grow in size, complexity, and centrality to the world economy.


There have been many developments in the management of patients with epilepsy ranging from diagnostic modalities to pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions. This review discusses several advances which the authors believe will have a significant impact on how such patients will be managed in the coming years. Electroencephalography [EEG] remains the main diagnostic tool in the evaluation of patients with seizure disorders. The novel discovery of high frequency EEG oscillations introduces new concepts of epileptogenicity. Also, techniques that couple EEG with imaging data will be discussed. The early intervention to abort seizures using a method that is easily administered by paramedic staff in the field has been shown to result in more rapid seizure cessation we elaborate on the pre-hospital management. Epilepsy surgery which has revolutionized the treatment of medically refractory patients is invasive and often resective in nature. We discuss the emerging science of neurostimulation as an alternative and potentially similarly efficacious technique.


The disposal of waste substances by industrial society is leading to contamination of the world ocean. The production of man-made solid waste is in excess of 0.5 x 109 tonnes per year. A growing fraction is not susceptible to organic breakdown or recycling, and production is increasing exponentially as more regions become industrialized. Present disposal practices consist of incineration, of dumping at sea, and of discarding material on land. As a result, foreign substances are being added in cumulative fashion to the atmosphere and to the waters of the world ocean. Once released in the terrestrial fluid envelope, noxious matter is subject to uncontrollable dispersal. Lodgement of waste in sedimentary sinks would cause its fixation under cover becoming thicker. A disposal system is outlined, aimed at standardization, and having the stages: (1) collection; (2) compaction of waste into blocks; and (3) its sea transportation to tectonic sinks. Deposition in subduction sinks would result eventually in the ingestion of waste material by the upper mantle. Deposition in sinks of the extensional class would result in its burial for periods without limit so far as civilizations are concerned. In both cases, it would be necessary to guard against reworking, and to examine the effect of exudations before burial.


Heat transfer by conduction is involved in the use of heat sinks dissipitating heat from electronic devices. Effective transfer of heat requires using materials of high thermal conductivity. In addition, it requires appropriate values of thermal expansion, matched to the semiconductor materials, high purity of materials used and good contact between bonded elements across which heat transfer occurs. The conventional materials are not able to fulfil still raising and complex requirements. The solutions of this problem could be using the composites materials, where the combinations of different properties is possible to use. This study presents the technological tests and the analysis of correlation between processing parameters and the properties of copperaluminium nitride composites. Composite materials were obtained by mixing in planetary ball mill and then densified using the sintering under pressure or hot pressing method. The microstructure of obtained composite materials using optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy were analyzed. Coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and thermal conductivity (TC) were investigated depending on the process conditions.


It is commonly accepted that the cochlea emits sound by a backward traveling wave along the cochlear partition. This belief is mainly based on an observation that the group delay of the otoacoustic emission measured in the ear canal is twice as long as the forward delay. In this study, the otoacoustic emission was measured in the gerbil under anesthesia not only in the ear canal but also at the stapes, eliminating measurement errors arising from unknown external- and middle-ear delays. The emission group delay measured at the stapes was compared with the group delay of basilar membrane vibration at the putative emission-generation site, the forward delay. The results show that the total intracochlear delay of the emission is equal to or smaller than the forward delay. For emissions with an f2/f1 ratio <1.2, the data indicate that the reverse propagation of the emission from its generation site to the stapes is much faster than a forward traveling wave to the f2 location. In addition, that the round-trip delays are smaller than the forward delay implies a basal shift of the emission generation site, likely explained by the basal shift of primary-tone response peaks with increasing intensity. However, for emissions with an f1 << f2, the data cannot distinguish backward traveling waves from compression waves because of a very small f1 delay at the f2 site.


High consumption of phytoestrogen-rich food correlates with reduced incidence of breast cancer. However, the effect of phytoestrogens on growth of pre-existing breast tumors presents concerns when planning the use of phytoestrogens as chemoprevention st rategy. Genistein, the active phytoestrogen in soy, displays weak estrogenic activity mediated by estrogen receptor (ER) with a preferential binding for the ER-beta species. However, no information is at present available on the interaction between phytoestrogens and the various isoforms generated by alternative splicing. In two human breast cancer cell lines, T47D and BT20, which express variable levels of ER-beta, the effect of genistein and quercetin was evaluated singly and in comparison with 17beta-estradiol, on mRNA expression of estrogen receptor-beta (ER-beta) isoforms evaluated by a triple primer RT-PCR assay. In T47D cells estradiol caused a 6-fold up-regulation of total ER-beta, and modified the relative expression pattern of the various isoforms, up-regulating the beta2 and down-regulating the beta5 isoform. Genistein up-regulated ER-beta2 and ER-beta1 in T47D cells, and after treatment the ER-beta2 isoform became prevalent, while in BT20 cells it almost doubled the percent contribution of ER-beta1 and ER-beta2 to total ER-beta. Quercetin did not alter the total levels nor the percent distribution of ER-beta isoforms in either cell line. Genistein, through the modulation of ER-beta isoform RNA expression inhibited estrogen-promoted cell growth, without interfering on estrogen-regulated transcription. ER-beta and its ER-beta mRNA isoforms may be involved in a self-limiting mechanism of estrogenic stimulation promoted either by the natural hormone or by weaker estrogen agonists like genistein.


This paper addresses the problem of device-level placement for analog layout, focusing mainly on symmetry-related aspects. Different from most of the existent analog placement approaches, employing basically simulated annealing optimization algorithms operating on flat (absolute) spatial representations, our model uses a more recent topological representation called sequence-pair, which has the advantage of not being restricted to slicing floorplan topologies. In this paper, we explain how specific features essential to analog placement, such as the ability to deal with complex symmetry constraints (for instance, an arbitrary number of symmetry groups of cells), can be easily handled by employing the sequence-pair representation. Several analog examples substantiate the effectiveness of our placement tool, which is already in use in an industrial environment.


The study considers various means of approach to the Gregorian melos during its oral transmission, before the conversion to neumes. Among these are intuitive analysis, based on the Carolingian received text; analogy with Balkan oral epic ("Homer and Gregory"); and "multiples" or parallel readings. An approach by way of a rare case of "close multiples" is explored in depth. The Gallo-Gregorian Offertory Elegerunt apostoli survives in parallel readings that are close in their musical substance but may be independent in their neumation. It suggests that during a later oral stage this particular chant, and perhaps a good deal of its cognate "idiomelic" repertory as well, had become melodically stable and memorized, and was no longer freely improvised. There have been common-sense reasons for supposing this, but nothing else takes it so near to proof.


Through recent technology advances in the field of wireless energy transmission wireless rechargeable sensor networks have emerged. In this new paradigm for wireless sensor networks a mobile entity called mobile charger MC traverses the network and replenishes the dissipated energy of sensors. In this work we first provide a formal definition of the charging dispatch decision problem and prove its computational hardness. We then investigate how to optimise the trade-offs of several critical aspects of the charging process. In the light of these optimisations, we study the impact of the charging process to the network lifetime for three characteristic underlying routing protocols. Finally, we propose a mobile charging protocol that locally adapts the circular trajectory of the MC to the energy dissipation rate of each sub-region of the network. We compare this protocol against several MC trajectories by a detailed experimental evaluation. The derived findings demonstrate significant performance gains.


Context. Detection of abundant O2 at 1–10% relative to H2O ice in the comae of comets 1P/Halley and 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has motivated attempts to explain the origin of the high O2 ice abundance. Recent chemical modelling of the outer, colder regions of a protoplanetary disk midplane has shown production of O2 ice at the same abundance as that measured in the comet.
Aims. We aim to carry out a thorough investigation to constrain the conditions under which O2 ice could have been produced through kinetic chemistry in the pre-solar nebula midplane.
Methods. We have utilised an updated chemical kinetics code to evolve chemistry under pre-solar nebula midplane conditions. Four different chemical starting conditions and the effects of various chemical parameters have been tested.
Results. Using the fiducial network, and for either reset conditions (atomic initial abundances) or atomic oxygen only conditions, the abundance level of O2 ice measured in the comets can be reproduced at an intermediate time, after 0.1–2 Myr of evolution, depending on ionisation level. When including O3 chemistry, the abundance of O2 ice is much lower than the cometary abundance (by several orders of magnitude). We find that H2O2 and O3 ices are abundantly produced (at around the level of O2 ice) in disagreement with their respective abundances or upper limits from observations of comet 67P. Upon closer investigation of the parameter space, and varying parameters for grain–surface chemistry, it is found that for temperatures 15–25 K, densities of 109−1010 cm−3, and a barrier for quantum tunnelling set to 2 Å, the measured level of O2 ice can be reproduced with the new chemical network, including an updated binding energy for atomic oxygen (1660 K). However, the abundances of H2O2 and O3 ices still disagree with the observations. A larger activation energy for the O + O2 → O3 reaction (Eact > 1000 K) helps to reproduce the non-detection of O3 ice in the comet, as well as reproducing the observed abundances of H2O2 and O2 ices. The only other case in which the O2 ice matches the observed abundance, and O3 and H2O2 ice are lower, is the case when starting with an appreciable amount of oxygen locked in O2.
Conclusions. The parameter space investigation revealed a sweet spot for production of O2 ice at an abundance matching those in 67P and 1P, and O3 and H2O2 ice abundances matching those in 67P. This means that there is a radial region in the pre-solar nebula from 120–150 AU, within which O2 could have been produced in situ via ice chemistry on grain surfaces. However, it is apparent that there is a high degree of sensitivity of the chemistry to the assumed chemical parameters (e.g. binding energy, activation barrier width, and quantum tunnelling barrier). Hence, because the more likely scenario starting with a percentage of elemental oxygen locked in O2 also reproduces the O2 ice abundance in 67P at early stages, this supports previous suggestions that the cometary O2 ice could have a primordial origin.


Frog eggs were exposed to di-2-ethylhexylphthalate (DEHP) added to the sediment in laboratory model systems. The number of successful hatchings decreased as the DEHP concentration was increased. In tadpoles, the uptake was concentration-dependent. The phthalate ester was transported from the sediment to the water, and the extent of the transport was governed by levels of DEHP in the sediment. Our results show that the reproduction of frogs may be negatively affected in aquatic environments polluted with phthalates.


An evolutionary perspective can help unify disparate observations and make testable predictions. We consider an evolutionary model in relation to two mechanistic frameworks of cancer biology: multistage carcinogenesis and the hallmarks of cancer. The multistage model predicts that cancer risk increases with body size and longevity; however, this is not observed across species (Peto's paradox), but the paradox is resolved by invoking the evolution of additional genetic mechanisms to suppress cancer in large, long-lived species. It is when cancer cells overcome these defence mechanisms that they exhibit the hallmarks of cancer, driving the ongoing evolution of these defences, which in turn is expected to create the differences observed in the genetics of cancer across species and tissues. To illustrate the utility of an evolutionary model we examined some recently published data linking stem-cell divisions and cancer incidence across a range of tissues and show why the original analysis was faulty, and demonstrate that the data are consistent with a multistage model varying from three to seven mutational hits across different tissues. Finally, we demonstrate how an evolutionary model can both define patterns of inherited (familial) cancer and explain the prevalence of cancer in post-reproductive years, including the dominance of epithelial cancers.


SUMMARYEcho Doppler examination purports to localize the origin of flow disturbances within the heart or great vessels. During our investigations of echo Doppler, frequency dispersions found in the transverse aortic arch, ascending aorta or right pulmonary artery that should indicate flow disturbances in those areas occurred in a set of lesions that did not involve the expected cardiac anatomic abnormalities. To learn the range of this false-positive problem, we reviewed all of our documented cases in which an echo Doppler had been obtained (n = 127). Our results indicate that 48% of our patients who had right pulmonary artery disturbances had additional flow disturbances detected in the ascending aorta or transverse aortic arch despite the fact that cardiac catheterization in these patients indicated absence of an anatomic abnormality in the left side of the heart. These false positives had the highest incidence of occurrence in patients who had high left cardiac output, but this also occurred in four instances in which the only cardiac lesion was pulmonary stenosis. The latter is thought to be due to an induced flow disturbance. We also found two patients whose only lesion was aortic stenosis, but these patients had secondary flow disturbance in the pulmonary artery; these two instances probably represent a flow disturbance induced from the aorta to the pulmonary artery. Knowledge of this set of false-positive results is important for proper interpretation of echo Doppler examinations.


Ladd's procedure for laparoscopic repair of malrotation has many advantages over conventional surgical techniques, such as earlier feeding and discharge. However, this procedure is still not commonly used in Taiwan. This report describes the results of treatment of intestinal malrotation in three patients using laparoscopic Ladd's procedure. The patients, aged 8 days, 17 days, and 3 years, underwent laparoscopic Ladd's procedure between July 1999 and September 2000. All three patients had symptoms of intermittent vomiting and were shown to have intestinal malrotation by upper gastrointestinal series study. The procedure was performed using three trocars of 5 mm diameter placed at the infraumbilical ring and the right and left lower quadrants. All procedures were completed laparoscopically. The operative times were 4.8, 3.6, and 3.5 hours, respectively. Feeding was started on postoperative Day 2 to 5, and the hospital stay was 6 to 11 days. Our results suggest that laparoscopic Ladd's procedure can be performed safely in pediatric patients. In addition, patients are expected to benefit from the smaller incision, earlier feeding, shorter hospital stay, and fewer complications compared with traditional Ladd's procedure.


Wavelet or sub–band coding has been quite successful in compression applications, and this success can be attributed in part to the good approximation properties of wavelets. In this paper, we revisit rate–distortion (RD) bounds for the wavelet approximation of piecewise smooth functions, and piecewise polynomial functions in particular. We contrast these results with RD bounds achievable using an oracle–based method. We then introduce a practical dynamic programming algorithm, which achieves performance similar to the oracle method, and present experimental results.


Most of the major cities in our country are opposed to the problem of water pollution due to the uncontrolled leachate resulting from the decomposition of solid wastes in irregular landfills. The waste waters that have high nitrogen content such as leachate cause various problems like eutrophication. In this study; the preliminary treatment of leachate which formed on the landfill site storing solid wastes of Samsun Metropolitan Municipality by MAP (Magnesium ammonium phosphate) precipitation was examined. For this purpose, optimization of the parameters that affecting the MAP precipitation was performed and the conditions for optimum removal efficiency were investigated. As a result of MAP precipitation, various mole ratios were tested with the aim of providing the best ammonia removal efficiency. The maximum ammonia removal was found to be 90.63% at pH 9.5 and at Mg:NH4:PO4 ratio of 4: 1: 2.2. At this conditions the ammonia concentration was decreased from 1792 mg/L to 168 mg/L. Experimental data were also evaluated and the regression equations of ammonia and COD removal were obtained using Minitab 16 statistical software.


In this study of 217 major and varied abdominal operations (larger than cholecystectomy), tube gastrostomy was performed as a routine adjunct. Satisfactory gastrointestinal (GI) decompression was maintained in more than 98 per cent of patients. Advantages of this approach over the use of a nasogastric tube are discussed. Important technical aspects are also highlighted. Complications other than malfunction of the gastrostomy tube were few and included minor bleeding in four patients and percutaneous ascites fluid drainage in two patients. Considering that a tube gastrostomy is simple to perform, functionally effective, has many advantages including enhanced patient comfort, is versatile in its possible uses including nutritional support or supplementation if needed, and carries a low morbidity and complication rate: a case is made for its use as a routine adjunct in major abdominal operations.


ABSTRACT This study explores three issues. Firstly, it examines the effect of the use of digital platforms on the relationship between the police, the press and the public, in the context of restricted police/press contact in the United Kingdom. Secondly, it considers the question, raised in an Australian context (Lee, M. and McGovern, A., 2014. Policing and media: public relations, simulacrums and communications. Abingdon and New York, NY: Routledge), as to whether the use of digital platforms allows the police, or more specifically in this study, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), to bypass the national British news media. Lastly, it identifies convergences and divergences with Lee and McGovern's study of police and press relations. Lee and McGovern's study indicates that, while the use of digital platforms has increased police control over flow of information, there is still a symbiotic police/press relationship. This study finds that, while the use of digital platforms has appeared to increase police transparency, the reverse is the case, and that the use of digital platforms has given the MPS more control than ever before over the flow of information to the press. The study suggests that these developments have serious consequences for the integrity of crime reporting and for democratic practices in the United Kingdom.


Rotor spun yarn, despite its growing popularity, suffers the disadvantages of lower tenacity, limited count range, and harsh handle of the resulting fabrics. Therefore, this work probes the possibility of eliminating these drawbacks by using tensile drawing. The yarns are produced with different specifications from the same fibers. The results are encouraging, since contrary to predictions, staple yarns treated this way do perform properly. Tensile drawing especially improves rotor spun yarn quality in terms of structural/mechanical evenness and processability. Other features include increased packing density, reduced yarn diameter, enhanced mechanical rigidity, and even the potential for larger tenacity. The influence of processing variables on yarn properties is also revealed by examining the contribution of the number of yarn loops mounted on the feed roller and rewinding to drawing and the resulting products. The number of yarn loops wound on the feed roller is significant in terms of drawing tension. Optimum drawing can be obtained without rewinding in terms of better yarn properties and economics, though rewinding can effectively eliminate fiber breakage. Moreover, the truely critical factor in the drawing extent should be drawing tension rather than the so-called drawing ratio.


The benefits of industrialization in employment generation, poverty reduction, improved living standard, improved economic growth and development, balance of payment stability, self-reliance, stimulation of other sectors of the economy, and development of skilled manpower have been well established in the literature. However, access to finance for industrial development has remained a key challenge in Nigeria. In view of this, this paper describes what the structure and operations of the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) should be so that the Bank will not only deliver on the core mandate of empowering MSMEs but also support the nation's quest for industrialization by adequately funding national priority projects in the areas of infrastructure, basic industries, energy, transportation, and the likes. The paper argues that limiting the mandate of the DBN only to facilitating credits for MSMEs in the informal sector will not go far in advancing Nigeria's quest for industrialization.


We evaluated a more efficient method of processing liquid-based cervical cytology specimens for human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing by Hybrid Capture II (HCII). Aliquots were made from 701 specimens in the following sequence: 4.0, 2.0, 1.0, 0.5, and 1.5 mL. The 4.0-mL aliquot was processed by the standard method (STP), and half of the processed material was tested by HCII. Other aliquots were processed with a new, filtration-based processing method (NPM). The 2.0-mL NPM aliquot had HCII test performance most similar to the STP, ie, similar HCII positivity (P = .4) and good test agreement (kappa = 0.85, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.80-0.89). The 194 cytologic negatives had greater positivity by STP (P = .04) compared with the 2.0-mL aliquot processed by NPM; between-method agreement was modest (kappa = 0.54, 95% CI, 0.36-0.72). A lower positive cut point for the 2.0-mL NPM aliquot partially abrogated this minor difference. In 241 specimens diagnosed as low-grade and 31 as high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions, there were no significant differences in HPVpositivity (>85% and 90%, respectively) between STP and NPM. NPM reduces specimen handling and decreases total testing time by approximately 33% without significant losses in HCII test performance.


This thesis focuses on the experiences of families who for a variety of reasons find themselves outside of the school system. It is concerned with families in one London borough who have decided not to send their children to school and to educate them at home. It examines the experiences of families who make a positive choice to home educate because of philosophical or religious beliefs but is particularly concerned with families who home educate following a series of difficulties with the school system, perhaps because their child has been bullied or because their child has special educational needs.
The thesis contributes and adds to studies on home education as very little has been written about families who feel forced out of formal schooling. Only in the last few years has the diverse nature of the home educating population in the UK started to be acknowledged in the professional literature.
The research for this study was carried out between 2003 and 2005. When the research was started there were 38 families with 55 children known to the local authority to be home educating. Of these 38 families, 17 were interviewed in order to gain the perceptions and experiences of parents.
In this thesis, four key areas of home education are considered. Firstly, the reasons that parents give for home education are reviewed. Secondly, the educational experience of home education is considered, including the methods of teaching that parents choose, as well as the academic achievement of those home educated. Thirdly, this study examines the relationship between home education and state education and considers whether parents' own experiences of formal schooling influenced their decision to educate their own children. Finally, policies on home education are examined both in the UK and in other countries.
The conclusion reached is that the community of home educators in the UK is indeed a deeply divided one in all the key areas studied.


Presented is a review of the pain management provided to an elderly male patient dying of mesothelioma in an acute care hospital and, subsequently, in a nursing home. Discussed are the medico-legal aspects of the case, including the patient's survivors' efforts to hold the treating physicians, hospital, and nursing home accountable for inadequate pain management through complaints submitted to the state medical board, the state department of health services, and the Center for Medicaid/Medicare Services, and in state court.


: Deceptive advertising is the behavior that the operators make use of the advertisements to fabricate the facts and cause the consumers' misunderstanding of their goods or services so as to gain benefits. In this paper, the governments and consumers are taken into account. From the perspective of companies, the main target is to maximize the profits. In that case, we discuss the impact of government supervision, consumer negative word-of-mouth, product cost and other factors on company advertising decision-making. A two-period model is established to analyze the optimal propaganda and maximum profits of the four possible advertising strategies, e.g., the company doesn't make deceptive advertisements, makes deceptive advertisements in the first period, makes deceptive advertisements in the second period, and makes deceptive advertisements in both periods. In this paper, we investigate the two-period model and find which one strategy is more profitable for the company and the optimal advertising levels. We find that the company will make deceptive advertising when the difference in cost between high-quality and low-quality products is large, the government supervision is loose, and negative word-of-mouth effect is small. Based on different market environment and product characteristics, we derive some useful advertising advices for the company, and also give management insights to consumers and government regulatory authorities.


This paper discusses abusive pricing practices by dominant undertakings. It starts with an overview of the different ways an undertaking can abuse its dominant position through pricing (chapter 2). The focus of this work is on margin squeeze. We start by defining margin squeeze (chapter 3), and then look at how margin squeeze is assessed (chapter 4 and 5). It will be examined why some undertakings appear to be more susceptible to this abuse than others (chapter 6). The last part of this paper investigates the place of margin squeeze in the European legislative framework. It first considers which kind of competition law abuse margin squeeze could be and currently is (chapter 7), and then focuses on the interaction of this competition law approach with the regulatory approach (chapter 8).


Epigenetic regulation of gene expression is a source of genetic variation, which can mimic recessive mutations by creating transcriptional haploinsufficiency. Germline epimutations and genomic imprinting are typical examples, although their existence can be difficult to reveal. Genomic imprinting can be tissue specific, with biallelic expression in some tissues and monoallelic expression in others or with polymorphic expression in the general population. Mutations in the skeletal-muscle ryanodine-receptor gene (RYR1) are associated with malignant hyperthermia susceptibility and the congenital myopathies central core disease and multiminicore disease. RYR1 has never been thought to be affected by epigenetic regulation. However, during the RYR1-mutation analysis of a cohort of patients with recessive core myopathies, we discovered that 6 (55%) of 11 patients had monoallelic RYR1 transcription in skeletal muscle, despite being heterozygous at the genomic level. In families for which parental DNA was available, segregation studies showed that the nonexpressed allele was maternally inherited. Transcription analysis in patients' fibroblasts and lymphoblastoid cell lines indicated biallelic expression, which suggests tissue-specific silencing. Transcription analysis of normal human fetal tissues showed that RYR1 was monoallelically expressed in skeletal and smooth muscles, brain, and eye in 10% of cases. In contrast, 25 normal adult human skeletal-muscle samples displayed only biallelic expression. Finally, the administration of the DNA methyltransferase inhibitor 5-aza-deoxycytidine to cultured patient skeletal-muscle myoblasts reactivated the transcription of the silenced allele, which suggests hypermethylation as a mechanism for RYR1 silencing. Our data indicate that RYR1 undergoes polymorphic, tissue-specific, and developmentally regulated allele silencing and that this unveils recessive mutations in patients with core myopathies. Furthermore, our data suggest that imprinting is a likely mechanism for this phenomenon and that similar mechanisms could play a role in human phenotypic heterogeneity.


Bisphenol A (BPA) usually exists in daily plastic products and its harmful effect on human health has been a popular topic. However, many conventional analytical methods need long sample preparation and measurement time, and some BPA biosensors suffer from the limitation of complex probe modification. Herein, we designed a simple SERS-coded aptamer sensor for BPA detection based on the electrostatic interaction between chitosan encapsulated 4-MBA coated Au@Ag NPs and anti-BPA aptamers. The negatively charged nucleic acid anti-BPA aptamer will cause the aggregation of the positively charged noble metal nano-reinforced substrate in acid buffer systems, resulting in a significant enhancement of the Raman signal. The specific binding of BPA with nucleic acid anti-BPA aptamers reduced the degree of aggregation of nanoparticles and weakened the SERS signal. This SERS-coded aptamer sensor had a wide linear range of 0.01–1 ng mL−1 and the limit of detection (LOD) was as low as 2.8 pg mL−1, and the method was successfully applied to detect BPA in bottled water within 15 min. As a rapid, simple, ultrasensitive and highly selective analytical technique for the detection of BPA, this SERS-based method would be important in biomedical diagnostics, environmental monitoring and food safety.


The harbor porpoise ( Phocoena phocoena ) is common in temperate waters of the eastern North Paci fi c Ocean, including Southeast Alaska inland waters, a complex environment comprised of open waterways, narrow channels, and inlets. Two demographically independent populations are currently recognized in this region. Bycatch of porpoises in the salmon drift gillnet fi sheries is suspected to occur regularly. In this study, we apply distance sampling to estimate abundance of harbor porpoise during ship surveys carried out in the summer of 2019. A strati fi ed survey design was implemented to sample different harbor porpoise habitats. Survey tracklines were allocated following a randomized survey design with uniform coverage probability. Density and abundance for the northern and southern Southeast Alaska inland water populations were computed using a combination of design-based line-and strip-transect methods. A total of 2,893 km was surveyed in sea state conditions ranging from Beaufort 0 to 3 and 194 harbor porpoise groups (301 individuals) were detected. An independent sighting dataset from surveys conducted between 1991 and 2012 were used to calculate the probability of missing porpoise groups on the survey trackline (g[0]=0.53, CV=0.11). Abundance of the northern and southern populations were estimated at 1,619 (CV=0.26) and 890 (CV=0.37) porpoises, respectively. Bycatch estimates, which were only obtained for a portion of the drift gillnet fi shery, suggest that mortality within the range of the southern population may be unsustainable. Harbor porpoises are highly vulnerable to mortality in gillnets, therefore monitoring abundance and bycatch is important for evaluating the potential impact of fi sheries on this species in Southeast Alaska.


Inquisition in medieval and early modern England has typically been the subject of historical rather than cultural investigation, and focussed on heresy. Here, however, inquisition is revealed as playing a broader role in medieval English culture, not only in relation to sanctions like excommunication, penance and confession, but also in the fields of exemplarity, rhetoric and poetry. Beyond its specific legal and pastoral applications, inquisitio was a dialogic mode of inquiry, a means of discerning, producing or rewriting truth, and an often adversarial form of invention and literary authority. The essays in this volume cover such topics as the theory and practice of canon law, heresy and its prosecution, Middle English pastoralia, political writing and romance. As a result, the collection redefines the nature of inquisition's role within both medieval law and culture, and demonstrates the extent to which it penetrated the late-medieval consciousness, shaping public fame and private selves, sexuality and gender, rhetoric, and literature. Mary C. Flannery is a lecturer in English at the University of Lausanne; Katie L. Walter is a lecturer in English at the University of Sussex. Contributors: Mary C. Flannery, Katie L. Walter, Henry Ansgar Kelly, Edwin Craun, Ian Forrest, Diane Vincent, Jenny Lee, James Wade, Genelle Gertz, Ruth Ahnert, Emily Steiner


Assessing alternative pond production systems that may reduce avian predation of channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) is of extreme interest to state/federal and private hatcheries. This study evaluated the culture of channel catfish fingerlings in a pilot-scale split-pond system (SPS) and compared it to traditional earthen ponds (TP). Six 0.04-ha ponds were covered by netting and stocked with channel catfish fingerlings at a rate of 200,000 fish ha–1; ponds were evenly split between TP and SPS. Fingerlings were cultured for 99 days and fed a commercial diet twice daily. Fish were fed 4.0% to 6.5% of their total body weight during the first 73 days, then ad libitum until the end of the study due to reduced water temperatures. Production parameters were similar between treatments except for condition factor, which was higher for fish raised in the TP. Channel catfish fingerlings raised in SPS had a more uniform size distribution than in TP. Exclusion of avian predators in an aquaculture facility is expensive, and for that reason the use of the SPS may be considered as an integrated management approach to alleviate this problem.


Accumulation of photosensibilisators - derivatives of E6 chlorines ("Radachlorine", "Photoditazine", "Zelevsky's balsam") in the mucous membrane and selection of most effective sources of emission have been investigated in 30 patients with rhinosinusitis and 10 with tonsillitis. As a source of emission we used light emitting diode (LED) matrix device "ACT" (wavelength approximately 405 nm (Sore band)) and a laser device LAHTA-"MILON"-ML500-SP (wavelength 662 nm). Drug accumulation in the mucous membrane and changes of their concentrations after emission were evaluated by changes of fluorescence, measured with a LESA-01-BIOSPEC spectrometer. The percent of fluorescence decrease ranged from 50% to 92.7%. This suggests intensive disintegration of photosensibilisators, and consequently, high therapeutic activity of this method. Effectiveness of this method is also confirmed by clinical results.


Ecological systems are the quintessential complex systems, involving numerous high-order interactions and non-linear relationships. The most commonly used statistical modelling techniques can hardly reflect the complexity of ecological patterns and processes. Finding hidden relationships in complex data is now possible through the use of massive computational power, particularly by means of Artificial Intelligence methods, such as evolutionary computation. Here we use symbolic regression (SR), which searches for both the formal structure of equations and the fitting parameters simultaneously, hence providing the required flexibility to characterize complex ecological systems. First, we demonstrate how SR can deal with complex datasets for: 1) modelling species richness; and 2) modelling species spatial distributions. Second, we illustrate how SR can be used to find general models in ecology, by using it to: 3) develop species richness estimators; and 4) develop the species-area relationship and the general dynamic model of oceanic island biogeography. All the examples suggest that evolving free-form equations purely from data, often without prior human inference or hypotheses, may represent a very powerful tool for ecologists and biogeographers to become aware of hidden relationships and suggest general theoretical models and principles.


Background: A care facility for people with disabilities struggles to obtain financial support for its Parent Education and Support Programme. The programme's design includes two implementers, an occupational therapist and a community-based worker, increasing its core costs. To enhance the likelihood of donor support, the Facility considered choosing the best-suited implementer for the programme. To help inform this decision, a formal methodological approach to high-level decision-making called multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) was utilised.Objective: Through a case study, this paper demonstrates how the MCDA methodology, using the analytical hierarchical process (AHP), was applied in a programme evaluation context.Method: Decision models were constructed using the AHP MCDA method and elicited rater judgments. Raters were drawn from four stakeholder groups: Programme beneficiaries, management, donors, and experts in disability and rehabilitation. This was followed by assigning criteria weights, establishing local priorities for each alternative, and aggregating the judgments. The model was then synthesised, and a sensitivity analysis was conducted.Results: The findings revealed that specific outcomes were attributed to each implementer, and thus, deciding to employ only one implementer would have had serious consequences for the programme's quality and the achievement of intended outcomes.Conclusion: The results confirmed the usefulness of AHP MCDA for programme design decisions.Contribution: This article contributes by enhancing the understanding of the AHP MCDA methodology. Secondly, it demonstrates the suitability of this methodology for programme designers, evaluators, or non-profit organisations (NPOs) who need to make informed decisions about the design and implementation of interventions.


Caring for the nationality is managing this unitary Republic of Indonesia to become "gemah ripah loh jinawi toto tentrem kertoraharjo". In Indonesian terminology is a sentence which is an expression to describe the condition of the Indonesian motherland. Gemah ripah means jinawi (abundant natural wealth) while toto tentrem karto raharjo (peaceful state). Or in the Arabic sense to be baldattun toyyibatun wa robbun ghoffur. This expression is not and mertajadi when the management of the State deviates from the importance of nation and state prosperity. Local (local wisdom) wisdom becomes the essence that must be able to be maintained in the midst of the storm of global ideology which ignores human values. When the young generation begins to forget the historical and cultural roots from which it originated, then he will get lost in the search for his true identity.


Past research on offshore information systems development (ISD) has found control theory to be a useful perspective for examining the co-ordination between the client and the vendor. Control literature describes two primary control modes viz. formal and informal control modes, classified as behavior, outcome, clan and self-control modes. But most control literature focuses either on the conditions for adopting a particular control mode or the influence of the chosen control mode(s) on relationship performance. Recent research on offshore ISD has uncovered two distinct control mechanisms comprising each of the control modes viz. structural and process mechanisms. Structural control mechanism describes the 'what' or the structure of the control mode, whereas process control mechanism explains 'how' or the process through which the control mode is enacted. Grounding our arguments in the alignment literature, the study theorizes the need for alignment between the control 'structures' and 'processes' within each of the control modes for effective contract performance. In effect, we posit the moderating role of control processes on the relationship between control structures and contract performance. In this research-inprogress paper, we perform a preliminary test on the theorized model, through data collected from a field study comprising offshore ISD projects executed by Indian vendors. Initial results indicate support for the 'alignment' argument. In future, we intend to do detailed theorizing, and ultimately test the model for different dependent variables, thereby contributing to the literature on alignment and control theory for offshore ISD.


Background. Successful fi sheries management requires estimation of gillnet selectivity for optimum exploitation of the resource. In the Okavango Delta, no study has assessed the selectivity of gillnets for Clarias gariepinus (Burchell, 1822) which is an important component of both the subsistence and the commercial gillnet fi shery catch. The aim of this study was to simulate the harvesting pattern of the commercial gillnet fi shery and provide gillnet selectivity parameters for C. gariepinus. This will help fi shery managers with information on the appropriate mesh sizes needed for sustainable utilisation of the catfi sh resource. Materials and methods. Monthly gillnet sampling was conducted over a period of 8 years from 2001 to 2009. The SELECT method was used to estimate gillnet selectivity for C. gariepinus using catch data from four mesh sizes (73 mm, 93 mm, 118 mm, and 150 mm). Results. The 93 mm and 118 mm mesh sizes were the most effi cient when capturing C. gariepinus accounting for 44.6% and 21.9% of the total catch, respectively. Mean fi sh length increased with increasing mesh size and was signifi cantly different between mesh sizes (P < 0.001). The modal fi sh lengths for the four mesh sizes were estimated at 41.63 cm, 53.23 cm, 66.35 cm, and 85.54 cm in order of increasing mesh size. Conclusion. The modal fi sh lengths for meshes 93 mm and 118 mm are greater than the size at maturity and therefore the current commercial gillnet fi shery which uses 100 mm mesh size may not be a threat to the C. gariepinus population in the Upper Okavango Delta. Future studies should aim to conduct fi shery dependent selectivity studies in the lower Okavango Delta to determine if selectivity changes with location and gear. Moreover, a comprehensive age-based stock assessment is required to establish the mesh size that optimizes yield without adversely depleting the spawning stock biomass.


Disease dynamics, human mobility, and public policies co-evolve during a pandemic such as COVID-19. Understanding dynamic human mobility changes and spatial interaction patterns are crucial for understanding and forecasting COVID-19 dynamics. We introduce a novel graph-based neural network(GNN) to incorporate global aggregated mobility flows for a better understanding of the impact of human mobility on COVID-19 dynamics as well as better forecasting of disease dynamics. We propose a recurrent message passing graph neural network that embeds spatio-temporal disease dynamics and human mobility dynamics for daily state-level new confirmed cases forecasting. This work represents one of the early papers on the use of GNNs to forecast COVID-19 incidence dynamics and our methods are competitive to existing methods. We show that the spatial and temporal dynamic mobility graph leveraged by the graph neural network enables better long-term forecasting performance compared to baselines.


In this paper, we present a Case Based Reasoning (CBR) system for the retrieval of medical cases made up of a series of images with semantic information (such as the patient age, sex and medical history). Indeed, medical experts generally need varied sources of information, which might be incomplete, uncertain and conflicting, to diagnose a pathology. Consequently, we derive a retrieval framework from Bayesian networks and the Dezert-Smarandache theory, which are well suited to handle those problems. The system is designed so that heterogeneous sources of information can be integrated in the system: in particular images, indexed by their digital content, and symbolic information. The method is evaluated on a classified diabetic retinopathy database. On this database, results are promising: the retrieval precision at five reaches 80.5%, which is almost twice as good as the retrieval of single images alone.


Ines Lamuniere will exemplify the attitude of dl-a, / Devanthery & Lamuniere, in architecture by two of their most recent projects for city centers in Switzerland. The Opera House in Lausanne, the national TV Tower in Geneva and other projects still in design phase will be discussed, presenting innovative relationships between the notion of "urban" architecture and its specific atmospheres, in relationship to the question of "image", program and construction.


Monthly, quarterly, and annual data between 1956 and 1995 were used to examine the effects of real economic variables on stock returns, future corporate cash flows, and future inflation. In general, relative effects of various economic variables on stock returns are justified by their effects on future corporate cash flows and on inflation. In particular, employment growth shows the strongest negative effect on stock returns. Compared with other variables, employment growth is related more negatively with future corporate cash flows and more positively with future inflation. These effects are most pronounced in annual data, which reflect long-term relationships. Based on these results, negative stock-price responses to strong economic activity seem to be rational.


Based on the analysis of the factors which affect the computing efficiency of the ray tracing method, an accelerate method of ray tracing method which can be used in open geographic environment was proposed. This method divided the whole terrain into small terrains, then chose the suit terrain which the ray emitted into after the analysis of ray features, so the number of intersection calculation between the ray and triangle faces which consist of the terrain is reduced from whole terrain scale to one smaller terrain scale, so the number of intersection calculation is reduced, therefore the speed of simulation and the efficiency of ray tracing is improved. Simulation results verify the correctness and validity of this method.


Abstract:The following list of recent research in singing is a brief sampling of dissertations/theses published during the last year. It is by no means comprehensive and reflects only a small fraction of the available documents.


Long business expansions have repeatedly generated expectations of self- perpetuating prosperity, yet it is clear that such popular forecasts always proved wrong eventually. Few business cycle peaks are successfully predicted; indeed, most are publicly recognized only with lengty delays. Analysts have been prompter to recognize troughs than peaks, even though the latter have often followed major slowdowns and have much longer (but also more variable variable) leadtimes of the indicators. Oil price boosts and monetary policy shifts triggered some recent cyclical downturns, but even in these particular episodes other more regularly observed developments played major roles. THe insistence on single shocks as the causes of recessions is erroneous: the older emphasis on movements in the growth of demand, money and credit, profits and investment deserve a revival. The relatively new but now widely held belief is that, for the recession-free stability to reign, real growth must be no more than moderate and inflation must stay quiescent but financial asset prices can rise indefinitely. The risk of overheating alone is being emphasized but downside as well as upside risks exist and both need to be continually considered."


Health system improvement (HSI) is focused on systematic changes to organisational processes and practices to improve the efficient delivery of safe care and quality outcomes. Guidelines that specify how interprofessional teams conduct HSI and knowledge translation are needed. We address this urgent requirement providing health professional teams with resources and strategies to investigate, analyse and implement system-level improvements. HSI encompasses similar, yet different, inter-related activities across a continuum. The continuum spans three categories of activities, such as quality improvement, health management research and translational health management research. A HSI decision making guide and checklist, comprising six-steps, is presented that can be used to select and plan projects. This resource comprises six interconnected steps including, defining the activity, project outcome, aim, use of evidence, appropriate methodology and implementation plan. Each step has been developed focusing on an objective, actions and resources. HSI activities provide a foundation for interprofessional collaboration, allowing multiple professions to create, share and disseminate knowledge for improved healthcare. When planned and executed well, HSI projects assist clinical and corporate staff to make evidence-informed decisions and directions for the benefit of the service, organisation and sector.


Implicit feedback from users behavior is a natural and scalable source for training and evaluating ranking models in human-interactive systems. However, inherent biases such as the position bias are key obstacles to its effective usage. This is further accentuated in cases of extreme bias, where behavioral feedback can be collected exclusively on the top ranked result. In fact, in such cases, state-of-art debiasing methods cannot be applied. A prominent use case of extreme position bias is the voice shopping medium, where only a small amount of information can be presented to the user during a single interaction, resulting in user behavioral signals that are almost exclusively limited to the top offer. There is no way to know how the user would have reacted to a different offer than the top one he was actually exposed to. Thus, any new ranker we wish to evaluate with respect to a behavioral metric, requires online experimentation. We propose a novel approach, based on anexternal estimator model, for accurately predicting offline the performance of a new ranker. The accuracy of our solution is proven theoretically, as well as demonstrated by a line of experiments. In these experiments, we focus on the use case of purchase prediction, and show that our estimator can accurately predict offline the purchase rate of different rankers over a segment of voice shopping traffic. Our prediction is validated online, as being compared to the actual performance obtained by each ranker when being exposed to users.


The current study demonstrates the effectiveness of an intervention that addresses both home care and day care for children with intellectual disabilities while also taking the large individual differences between the children into account. The KLINc Studio intervention was designed to improve the language development, communication skills, and emergent literacy of 10 children with complex communication needs. The focus of the anchor-based intervention program was on the stimulation of vocabulary learning via the incorporation of AAC into the learning environment in the most natural manner possible. While all of the children showed significant progress across the intervention period of 2 years, the group of speaking children showed greater development in the domains of receptive language and productive syntax than the group of non-speaking children. For heterogeneous groups of children with disabilities, the use of a combined intervention such as that described here appears to be promising.


The irregular fuel surface was observed by the visualization of hybrid rocket combustion. Even though the test condition maintained oxidizer rich environment, the irregular dark fuel surface was formed as the result of incomplete combustion. In order to investigate the correlation of the characteristics of oxidizer flow and the irregular fuel surface, various flow conditions were imposed such as swirl flow, induced swirl flow by helical fuel configuration and straight flow. Test results revealed no correlation was found between oxidizer flow condition and irregular fuel surface. And this can be a commonly observed phenomena in the tests with different fuel/oxidizer combination. Thus, the irregular fuel surface can be a result of the interaction of blowing flow of vaporized fuel and the boundary layer of oxidizer flow. A further study will be required to confirm the assumption for the formation of irregular fuel surface.


ABSTRACT Cidofovir is the first nucleoside monophosphate analogue currently being used for the treatment of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) retinitis in individuals with AIDS. Unfortunately, the period of therapy with the use of this compound may be limited due to the possible emergence of serious irreversible nephrotoxic effects. New drugs with improved toxicity profiles are needed. The goal of this study was to investigate the anticytomegaloviral properties and drug-induced toxicity of a novel phosphonate analogue, namely, (−)-2-(R)-dihydroxyphosphinoyl-5-(S)-(guanin-9′-yl-methyl) tetrahydrofuran (compound 1), in comparison with those of cidofovir. The inhibitory activities of both compounds on HCMV propagation in vitro were similar against the AD 169 and Towne strains, with 50% inhibitory concentrations ranging from 0.02 to 0.17 μg/ml for cidofovir and <0.05 to 0.09 μg/ml for compound 1. A clinical HCMV isolate that was resistant to ganciclovir and that had a known mutation within the UL54 DNA polymerase gene and a cidofovir-resistant laboratory strain derived from strain AD 169 remained sensitive to compound 1, whereas their susceptibilities to ganciclovir and cidofovir were reduced by 33- and 10-fold, respectively. Both compound 1 and cidofovir exhibited equal potencies in an experimentally induced murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) infection in mice, with a prevention or prolongation of mean day to death at dosages of 1.0, 3.2, and 10.0 mg/kg of body weight/day. In cytotoxicity experiments, compound 1 was found to be generally more toxic than cidofovir in cell lines Hs68, HFF, and 3T3-L1 (which are permissive for HCMV or MCMV replication) but less toxic than cidofovir in MRC-5 cells (which are permissive for HCMV replication). Drug-induced toxic side effects were noticed for both compounds in rats and guinea pigs in a 5-day repeated-dose study. In guinea pigs, a greater weight loss was noticed with cidofovir than with compound 1 at dosages of 3.0 and 10.0 mg/kg/day. An opposite effect was detected in rats, which were treated with the compounds at relatively high dosages (up to 100 mg/kg/day). Compound 1 and cidofovir were nephrotoxic in both rats and guinea pigs, with the epithelium lining the proximal convoluted tubules in the renal cortex being the primary target site. The incidence and the severity of the lesions were found to be dose dependent. The lesions observed were characterized by cytoplasm degeneration and nuclear modifications such as karyomegaly, the presence of pseudoinclusions, apoptosis, and degenerative changes. In the guinea pig model, a greater incidence and severity of lesions were observed for cidofovir than for compound 1 (P < 0.001) with a drug regimen of 10 mg/kg/day.


In this thesis, we investigate two numerical methods to price nancial options. We look at two types of options, namely European options and Asian options. The numerical methods we use are the nite di erence method and numerical inversion of the Laplace transform. We apply nite di erence methods to partial di erential equations with both uniform and non-uniform spatial grids. The Laplace inversion method we use is due to Talbot. It is based on the midpoint-type approximation of the Bromwich integral on a deformed contour. When applied to Asian options, we have the problem of computing the hypergeometric function of the rst kind. We propose a new method for numerically calculating the hypergeometric function. This method too is based on using Talbot contours. Throughout the thesis, we use the Black-Scholes equation as our benchmark problem.


Environmental microorganisms continue to serve as a major source of bioactive natural products (NPs) and as an inspiration for many other scaffolds in the toolbox of modern medicine. Nearly all microbial NP-inspired therapies can be traced to field expeditions to collect samples from the environment. Despite the importance of these expeditions in the search for new drugs, few studies have attempted to document the extent to which NPs or their corresponding production genes are distributed within a given environment. To gain insights into this, the geographic occurrence of NP ketosynthase (KS) and adenylation (A) domains was documented across 53 and 58 surface sediment samples, respectively, covering 59,590 square kilometers of Lake Huron. Overall, no discernible NP geographic distribution patterns were observed for 90,528 NP classes of nonribosomal peptides and polyketides detected in the survey. While each sampling location harbored a similar number of A domain operational biosynthetic units (OBUs), a limited overlap of OBU type was observed, suggesting that at the sequencing depth used in this study, no single location served as a NP "hotspot". These data support the hypothesis that there is ample variation in NP occurrence between sampling sites and suggest that extensive sample collection efforts are required to fully capture the functional chemical diversity of sediment microbial communities on a regional scale.


The reduction of nitric oxide (NO) to nitrous oxide (N2O) is a process relevant to biological chemistry as well as to the abatement of certain environmental pollutants. One of the proposed key intermediates in NO reduction is hyponitrite (N2O2(2-)), the product of reductive coupling of two NO molecules. We report the reductive coupling of NO by an yttrium-tricopper complex generating a trans-hyponitrite moiety supported by two μ-O-bimetallic (Y,Cu) cores, a previously unreported coordination mode. Reaction of the hyponitrite species with Brønsted acids leads to the generation of N2O, demonstrating the viability of the hyponitrite complex as an intermediate in NO reduction to N2O. The additional reducing equivalents stored in each tricopper unit are employed in a subsequent step for N2O reduction to N2, for an overall (partial) conversion of NO to N2. The combination of Lewis acid and multiple redox active metals facilitates this four electron conversion via an isolable hyponitrite intermediate.


The TM6 phylum belongs to the so-called microbial dark matter that gathers uncultivated bacteria detected only via DNA sequencing. Recently, the genome sequence of a TM6 bacterium (TM6SC1) has led to suggest that this bacterium would adopt an endosymbiotic life. In the present paper, free-living amoebae bearing a TM6 strain were isolated from a water network. The amoebae were identified as Vermamoeba vermiformis and the presence of a TM6 strain was detected by polymerase chain reaction and microscopy. The partial sequence of its 16S rRNA gene showed this strain to be closely related to the sequenced TM6SC1 strain. These bacteria displayed a pyriform shape and were found within V. vermiformis. Therefore, these bacteria were named Vermiphilus pyriformis. Interactions studies showed that V. pyriformis was highly infectious and that its relation with V. vermiformis was specific and highly stable. Finally, it was found that V. pyriformis inhibited the encystment of V. vermiformis. Overall, this study describes for the first time an endosymbiotic relationship between a TM6 bacterium and a free-living amoeba in the environment. It suggests that other bacteria of the TM6 phylum might also be endosymbiotic bacteria and may be found in other free-living amoebae or other organisms.


Tensor magnetic hysteresis loops are measured for a pipeline steel cube. The amplitude and direction of total magnetization are calculated as the magnetic field is applied in each of the three cube directions. The results show that the total magnetization remains in the same direction over a large magnetization range while the applied field increases and approaches the magnetic field direction when the field becomes very strong. This proves that the magnetizing process has two stages. One is domain wall motion, for which the magnetization direction remains constant, another is magnetization rotation when the magnetization rotates toward the direction of the applied field.


A Minimally-invasive Multimodal Surface Wave (MMSW) geophysical testing method, which is a hybrid of surface and borehole seismic methods, was developed recently by the authors to measure more extensive multi-mode dispersion data and thus improve the accuracy of inversion profiles. The new MMSW method employs a borehole geophone at selected depths to record seismic waves from different source offsets on the soil surface. Presented in this paper is a procedure for estimating a range of optimum geophone depths to capture a given higher mode by the MMSW method. Stiffness matrix and finite-element-based numerical simulations of the MMSW method are performed to identify the relationships between critical geophone depths and apparent cutoff frequencies of higher modes. Specifically, it is shown for increasing velocity profiles that 1) at a given borehole sensor measurement depth, the apparent cutoff frequencies of higher modes increase with mode number, 2) at a given frequency, the critical geophone depth at which a higher mode will first become dominant increases with mode number, and 3) for a given higher mode, the apparent cutoff frequency decreases as measurement depth increases. A preliminary field test is conducted using a vertical geophone placed at five different depths while impacts are applied to the soil surface from 3.66 to 43.89 m from the borehole, with an impact spacing of 3.66 m. Dispersion images from the five geophone depths are superimposed to produce a dispersion image having three modes with improved clarity relative to the surface-only Multichannel Analysis of Surface Waves (MASW) method. A comparison of the experimental and theoretical apparent cutoff frequencies for higher modes is used to validate the theoretical prediction of critical depths by the stiffness matrix method. Matching of experimental and theoretical apparent cutoff frequencies could provide additional optimization constraints to reduce the uncertainty of final inversion profiles.


In this article we estimate the level of "Design Application" in 37 European Countries in the period 2010-2019. We use data from the European Innovation Scoreboard-EIS of the European Commission. We perform four econometric models i.e., Pooled OLS, Panel Data with Random Effects, Panel Data with Fixed Effects, Dynamic Panel. We found that the level of Design Applications is negatively associated to "Enterprise Births", "Finance and Support", "Firm Investments" and positively associated with "Venture Capital", "Turnover share large enterprises", "R&D expenditure public sector", "Intellectual Assets". In adjunct we perform a cluster analysis with the application of the k-Means algorithm optimized with the Silhouette Coefficient and we found three different clusters. Finally, we confront eight different machine learning algorithms to predict the level of "Design Application" and we found that the Tree Ensemble is the best predictor with a value for the 30% of the dataset analyzed that is expected to decrease in mean of -12,86%.


Three rectangular monoplane wings having rounded tips were tested on the N.A.C.A. spinning balance in the 5-foot vertical wind tunnel. The airfoil sections used were the N.A.C.A. 0009, 23018, and 6718. The aerodynamic characteristics of the models and a prediction of the angles of sideslip for steady spins are given. There is included an estimate of the yawing moment that must be furnished by parts of the airplane to balance the inertia couples and wing yawing moments for spinning equilibrium. The predicted angles of sideslip and yawing moments required for spinning equilibrium for a Clark Y wing with the same form are included for comparison.


Communication between cells is crucial for proper functioning of multicellular organisms. The recently discovered membranous tubes, named tunneling nanotubes, that directly bridge neighboring cells may offer a very specific and effective way of intercellular communication. Our experiments on RT4 and T24 urothelial cell lines show that nanotubes that bridge neighboring cells can be divided into two types. The nanotubes of type I are shorter and more dynamic than those of type II, and they contain actin filaments. They are formed when cells explore their surroundings to make contact with another cell. The nanotubes of type II are longer and more stable than type I, and they have cytokeratin filaments. They are formed when two already connected cells start to move apart. On the nanotubes of both types, small vesicles were found as an integral part of the nanotubes (that is, dilatations of the nanotubes). The dilatations of type II nanotubes do not move along the nanotubes, whereas the nanotubes of type I frequently have dilatations (gondolas) that move along the nanotubes in both directions. A possible model of formation and mechanical stability of nanotubes that bridge two neighboring cells is discussed.


We present evidence from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System and Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System that shows increased seatbelt use following the enactment of stricter BAC thresholds in states where seatbelt laws are primarily enforced. This suggests that inebriated drivers may use their seatbelts more judiciously to avoid being identified as a drunk driver by law enforcement. The interactive effect of stricter drunk driving laws and primary seatbelt laws are also shown to be more effective than either law passed in isolation in terms of reducing traffic fatalities.


Interferometric lithography (IL), the interference of a small number of coherent optical beams, is a powerful technique for the fabrication of a wide array of samples of interest for nanoscience and nanotechnology. The techniques and limits of IL are discussed with particular attention to the smallest scales achievable. With immersion techniques, the smallest pattern size for a single exposure is a half-pitch of /spl lambda//4n where /spl lambda/ is the optical wavelength and n is the refractive index of the immersion material. Currently with a 193-nm excimer laser source and H/sub 2/O immersion, this limiting dimension is /spl sim/34 nm. With nonlinear spatial frequency multiplication techniques, this limit is extended by factors of 1/2, 1/3, etc.-extending well into the nanoscale regime. IL provides an inexpensive, large-area capability as a result of its parallelism. Multiple exposures, multiple beams, and mix-and-match with other lithographies extend the range of applicability. Imaging IL provides an approach to arbitrary structures with comparable resolution. Numerous application areas, including nanoscale epitaxial growth for semiconductor heterostructures; nanofluidics for biological separations; nanomagnetics for increased storage density; nanophotonics including distributed feedback and distributed Bragg reflectors, two- and three-dimensional photonic crystals, metamaterials, and negative refractive index materials for enhanced optical interactions are briefly reviewed.


This paper compares the performance of 229 `New Economy' firms offering broad-based stock options to that of their non-stock option counterparts . A simple comparison of these firms reveals that the former have higher shareholder returns, Tobin's q and new knowledge generation . Multivariate analysis using panel data also suggests that the adoption of a stock option plan results in higher levels of value added per employee . However, we do not find evidence that these plans result in superior growth in Tobin's q or new knowledge generation .


This paper presents a real-time vision-based vehicle detection system employing an online boosting algorithm. It is an online AdaBoost approach for a cascade of strong classifiers instead of a single strong classifier. Most existing cascades of classifiers must be trained offline and cannot effectively be updated when online tuning is required. The idea is to develop a cascade of strong classifiers for vehicle detection that is capable of being online trained in response to changing traffic environments. To make the online algorithm tractable, the proposed system must efficiently tune parameters based on incoming images and up-to-date performance of each weak classifier. The proposed online boosting method can improve system adaptability and accuracy to deal with novel types of vehicles and unfamiliar environments, whereas existing offline methods rely much more on extensive training processes to reach comparable results and cannot further be updated online. Our approach has been successfully validated in real traffic environments by performing experiments with an onboard charge-coupled-device camera in a roadway vehicle.


Gastrostomy is a procedure that involves placing a tube into a person's
stomach through the abdominal wall to provide long-term nutritional
support. While the procedure increases the quality of life, it is also
associated with several complications. A survey among members of the
Netherlands Society of Physicians for Persons with Intellectual
Disabilities (NVAVG) has been performed to identify the incidence and
nature of the complications in intellectually disabled persons in the
Netherlands. A total of 77 questionnaires were completed, representing
about one-third of all the questionnaires sent out. Eighty per cent of
the respondent physicians who work with severely intellectually disabled
persons had to deal with complications in the last five years. Two
hundred complications, which reflects about 200 patients, were observed
in this period. Most complications can be classified as minor. The most
frequently observed are obstruction of the tube and granuloma formation.
However, major complications, such as peritonitis and aspiration
pneumonia, were reported frequently. In addition, in the last five years
13 physicians had observed deaths that were most likely related to
gastrostomy. Due to the design of the study, the low response to the
questionnaire and the lack of information on the total number of
intellectually disabled persons with a gastrostomy, it was not possible
to calculate the percentage of persons who experienced a complication. A
prospective follow-up study is necessary to examine how the different
complications are caused. It would also be advisable to develop a
national, harmonised protocol to try to slow down the rate of
complications.


INTRODUCTION Since the introduction of ultrasound technology first took place in the 1950's, there has been a significant increase in its utilization as a diagnostic tool during pregnancy (Romero, Jeanty, & Hobbins, 1984). Indications for the use of ultrasound scanning during pregnancy include determination of fetal gestational age, monitoring of fetal growth, evaluation of multiple gestation potential, and evaluation of fetal viability when spontaneous abortion or intrauterine demise is suspected (Kremkau, 1984). Ultrasound imaging is also applied in the detection of ectopic pregnancy, in diagnosis of physical anomalies, as a guide to physicians when treating the fetal patient in-utero and as a visual reference in the performance of amniocentesis (Gottesfeld, 1984). Ultrasound cannot detect signs of pregnancy during the first three to four weeks after conception. The first sonographic sign of an intrauterine pregnancy is the visualization of a gestational sac at five and one-half to six weeks after the last menstrual cycle (Batzer, et al., 1983). After the identification of the gestational sac, heart motion can be identified by the seventh week of gestation and fetal and trunk movements are detectable by the ninth week (Joupilla & Piironen, 1975; Robinson, 1972; and Shawker et al., 1980). Investigators continue to explore (Stratmeyer, 1980), debate and weigh (Verny, 1987) the benefits of ultrasound scanning versus the possibility of unknown hazards to the fetus with this procedure. However, as of this writing, there are no known proven risks to the unborn (Kremkau, 1984). It was not the intention of the current study to enter that debate but more to explore other aspects of this procedure. This seems particularly timely in that many hospitals and private practice physicians now use ultrasound imaging as a routine screening device during pregnancy (Platt, 1984). During an ultrasound examination with a real-time scanner, the expectant parent(s) can view their unborn child in-utero. If the fetus is moving the scanner will transmit that moving image onto a television monitor for viewing (Reading, 1983). As a result of the increasing use of this diagnostic procedure, the ways in which pregnancy and the time of expectancy are viewed may be changing. Prior to the use of this technology, the first view parents could have of their child was at birth. Ultrasound technology has now removed this limitation. As ever increasing numbers of parents are being exposed to real-time ultrasound imaging of their unborn children, assessment of the social and psychological impact of this technology is appropriate and necessary to understand its possible implications. Several studies have examined various aspects of the mother's emotional experience of fetal imaging. However, absent from those investigations were any attempt to systematically study the emotional reactions of expectant fathers who were exposed to ultrasound imaging of their child in-utero. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to begin to explore some of the emotional responses of expectant fathers when viewing their unborn child. LITERATURE REVIEW In order to more fully understand fathers' specific reactions to fetal imaging it may be beneficial to review some of the literature related to fathers' experiences to pregnancy in general. Historically, there was a noticeable void in the literature prior to the 1970's regarding the normative experience of the expectant father during pregnancy. The limited data available prior to that time appears to have focused more upon abnormal or pathological responses of men towards pregnancy (Freud, 1909, 1918; Jacobsen, 1950; and Jarvis, 1962). Commenting on the relative lack of literature regarding the expectant father, Parke (1981), points out that until recently expectant fathers have been generally ignored in the literature. He believes that this was as a result of prior assumptions which subtly promoted the idea that fathers were less important than mothers in the development of their child. …


New challenges in remote sensing impose the necessity of designing pixel classification methods that, once trained on a certain dataset, generalize to other areas of the earth. This may include regions where the appearance of the same type of objects is significantly different. In the literature it is common to use a single image and split it into training and test sets to train a classifier and assess its performance, respectively. However, this does not prove the generalization capabilities to other inputs. In this paper, we propose an aerial image labeling dataset that covers a wide range of urban settlement appearances, from different geographic locations. Moreover, the cities included in the test set are different from those of the training set. We also experiment with convolutional neural networks on our dataset.


The light curves of the chromospherically active eclipsing binary RT Lacertae obtained from 1993 to 1999 are analyzed here. The variation of the brightness at mid-eclipses and at maxima is carefully re-examined. The largest variation was obtained at mid-primary, where the more massive, hotter component occults the less massive cooler secondary star. Therefore, we suggest that the variation of the system's brightness mainly arises from the more massive star. The mean brightness of the system indicates a cyclic change. It showed at least two jumps during the last 22 years. The first occurred in 1984 and the second in 1994. Therefore, the length of the magnetic cycle appears to be about ten years. All the timings of the mid-eclipses obtained so far were collected and analyzed under the assumption of the third body hypothesis. A period of 94 yr was found for the third body orbit. The variation of the systemic velocity of the eclipsing pair seems to confirm this suggestion. The time delay and advance due to the orbit of the eclipsing pair around the third component were computed and subtracted from the original residuals obtained with the linear light elements. The remaining residuals also show a quasi-periodic change. The period of this change was calculated to be about 18 yr. This second O-C change may be related to the magnetic activity of the more massive component.


Within the structure-agency debate the works of Margaret Archer and Anthony Giddens represent opposite opinions of the society-person connection and the status of social types. Their views are defined, respectively, by an adherence to dualism or duality. Whilst Archer's theory requires ontological proof that social structures, as emergent phenomena, exist sui generis Giddens' argument, based on a commitment to hermeneutics and pragmatism carries no such ontological baggage. I argue that the demands of Archer's and Bhaskar's realism are unmet and that duality is the most plausible position to hold in the structure-agency debate. In Chapter One I set out Giddens' theory and note his rejection of relativism in favour of pragmatism. In Chapter Two I argue that the bedrock of Archer's theory, Bhaskar's naturalism, when carried to the social sciences, is flawed by the inability to 'close' systems. In Chapter Three I show how realists have modified Bhaskar's realism in order to separate structure from agency. However, as with past attempts at basing realism on the concept of emergence this raises the spectre of reification. In Chapter Four I discuss and demonstrate the ways in which the concept of supervenience may or may not be helpful in proving the sui generis status of social facts. In the first half of Chapter 5 I make a distinction between morphological and cultural types and demonstrate that separating 'ideas' from those individuals who hold them is nonsensical and therefore dualism is fundamentally flawed. In the second half of the chapter I argue that there are logical grounds for rejecting the transposition of realism from the natural to the social sciences. In Chapter Six I defend Giddens' thesis against criticisms concerning voluntarism, the clarity of the notion of social structure and its relationship to system.


Objective: This study aimed to determine the exercise-induced muscle damage responses to whey protein supplementation in soccer players. Methods: Total 22 male soccer's participated in this study. Subjects were divided into 2 groups as experiment group (n=11) and placebo group (n=11). Blood samples were taken from the athletes' basal, post-exercise (PE), 2 hours after supplement ingestion (PS). Serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatine kinase (CK) and total protein values were analyzed. Results: A statistically significant difference was found when PE total protein was compared to basal and PS in the experiment (whey) and placebo group (p<0.05). Basal serum LDH level was significantly lower than PE and PS values in the whey group (p<0.05). Conclusions: It was observed that whey protein consumed after exercise did not have any positive effect on athletes' muscle damage values which are directly affecting the recovery such as total protein, ALT, AST, LDH, and CK.


Although EPONs have been proposed as a means of overcoming the bandwidth bottleneck problem in local access networks, they may not be able to meet the ever-growing bandwidth demand from users in the near future. Accordingly, this study presents what we believe to be a novel wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) system based on an arrayed-waveguide-grating (AWG) module to meet the rapidly increasing bandwidth demand anticipated in the future. The use of the AWG enables the proposed WDM EPON architecture to achieve wavelength spatial reuse and to provide an intercommunication capability between optical network units (ONUs). As a result, the architecture not only allows upstream access to the central office, but also facilitates a truly shared LAN capability among the end users. Furthermore, the proposed WDM EPON scheme takes account of the requirement for backward compatibility with the IEEE 802.3ah multipoint control protocol and incorporates a dynamic bandwidth allocation scheme and a quality-of-service provisioning mechanism to arbitrate the access of the individual ONUs over the WDM layer. An analytical framework is developed for evaluating the mean packet delay and mean queue length of the proposed WDM EPON system. The analytical results derived using this framework are found to be in good agreement with those obtained from computer simulations.


Serum antibody to Borrelia burgdorferi was measured in 33 patients with sarcoidosis which was confirmed clinically and pathologically. The results showed that 81.8% of the patients were positive for anti-B. burgdorferi antibody. In addition, a strain of B. burgdorferi was isolated from a patient's blood. Fifteen patients received ceftriaxone 2g per day or penicillin 12 million U per day. The antibody titers of the patients decreased to nearly normal levels rapidly. Serum angiotensin converting enzyme (SACE) turned to normal range after the treatment. According to the findings mentioned above, we consider that B. burgdorferi infection may be the cause of sarcoidosis and sarcoidosis might be a specific type of Lyme disease.


Background and objectives: Thermal comfort is very essential for a comfortable stay in any indoor space. Comfort conditions of indoor spaces are influenced by parameters like air movement, humidity, air temperature, etc. The aim of this research is to assess the air movement preferences by the occupants in classrooms of the selected higher education institutes in hot humid climate of India. Methods/statistical analysis: Surveys were conducted in all the three seasons of the year as per ASHRAE standard procedures. Environmental variables were measured in classrooms while questionnaires were distributed to the occupants simultaneously. A total of 361 students were surveyed with 1444 data sets for the whole year. Findings: Outdoor (Tout) temperatures were recorded and regression analysis has been done to find the relationship between the mean outdoor temperatures with the indoor operative temperatures (Top) recorded. The acceptance of air movement in classrooms during summer is 10–15.4%, in moderate season it is 5.6–30% and during winter it is up to 58%. Improvements/application: This study enables to understand the influence of air movement preference on occupant's thermal comfort in classrooms of hot and humid climate of India. This will help in creating a comfortable environment in classrooms of higher education through placement and designing of openings for increased air movement thereby improving the thermal comfort conditions. This research assessed the movement of air in the classrooms of higher education and the occupants air movement preference for thermal comfort. This study is a starting point for the adaptive thermal comfort research in hot and humid climate of Vijayawada region.


Several studies have shown that lifeboat was not as safe as it was supposed to be. Even though there is less number of lifeboat accidents that contribute to the total shipping accidents, lifeboat accidents caused a lot of fatalities and injuries to seafarers, most in maintenance, survey or drilling. Seafarers' confidence of lifeboats was seriously reduced. In this report, a coding structure is proposed after analyzing several lifeboat accidents by using one primary method called Events and Causal Factor Charting (ECFC) and an assisting method called Influence Diagrams. Further, the probabilistic model is proposed by utilizing the Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) to help build a model for analyzing the relationship between different causal events (variables). A human and organizational factors analysis is carried out after the BBN approach. A Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) is proposed in that chapter. A specific coding structure for lifeboat accidents is addressed in the research. This could help collecting lifeboat accident data in a more professional way and provide the sounding data support for the future quantification work. The BBN and HFACS work was proved to be feasible and beneficial for the analysis of lifeboat accidents. Future technical analysis could be provided based on the research. Key Words: Lifeboat, Influence Diagram, Coding, BBN, HFACS


Moral judgements have a dyadic nature. Normally we experience some pressure to act in line with our moral judgements, even if it's regularly overcome by fear, selfishness, laziness, or other forces. This is evidence that moral judgements are desire-like, as expressivists contend. On the other hand, moral judgements also have the features of beliefs. They can be true or false, as cognitivists maintain, and justified and reasoned about in the way other beliefs are. Rather than deny one of these two aspects, this thesis is ultimately a defence of higher-order expressivism according to which moral judgements are hybrid mental states composed of beliefs and desires. However, only two of the chapters (2 and 3) contain arguments in favour of this specific kind of expressivism. The first chapter – What is Expressivism? – argues for a general characterisation that will be useful for friends and foes alike, and the final two chapters address problems that are common to all expressivists.

After we find out what expressivism is, I turn to the problems with pure versions according to which moral judgements are only desire-like states. I argue in chapter 2, The Problem with Purity, that pure expressivists are unlikely to be able to solve the Frege-Geach problem but higher-order (and other hybrid) expressivists can. In chapter 3, Metaphysics for Expressivists, I make a case for the inescapability of metaphysics even on the expressivist picture, which puts more pressure on pure versions of expressivism. I then show why higher-order expressivists must think moral properties are reducible to bog-standard descriptive ones. I end by arguing that this expressivist take on moral naturalism is better than cognitivist versions of naturalism.

Chapter 4 is about how to understand moral disagreement. If moral judgements are desire-like, why does it make sense to say that two people morally disagree? I propose An Assertoric Theory of Disagreement whereby people express disagreement by asserting inconsistent things (and the problem of inconsistency is addressed in chapter 2). Finally, chapter 5, Error and the Limits of Quasi-Realism, is about how to understand the thought that our moral beliefs might be mistaken. I defend the standard expressivist construal of it being a case of thinking we might change our minds after we've gathered more evidence, cohered our beliefs and generally improved our epistemic situation. I then argue this yields a transcendental argument against scepticism: it tells us that it is incoherent to believe we might be utterly unable to access the moral truth. The upshot is that expressivists cannot "mimic" realism completely, but if this simply means that our door is closed to radical scepticism whereas theirs is open, this is all the better for expressivism.


The research presented in this thesis seeks to improve the current state and technique for dynamic modelling of systems of rigid bodies in spatial motion. The research have been focused around modelling of underwater vehicles and robotic manipulators. Dynamic modelling of such systems are of growing importance as the demand for precise motion control with an increasing degree of autonomy continue to grow. This thesis presents a modelling framework which enables model developers to create a basic bond graph template for a system of rigid bodies in spatial motion. This template can be used as a base for further model development, on which the developer can utilize the modularity virtue of the bond graph by interfacing sub models of various systems. An effective method for developing and implementing such a basic template in bond graph software is presented. Then the virtues of this approach is demonstrated through two case studies. In the first case study a simulator for a seven degrees of freedom manipulator is created, onto which a high fidelity hydraulic actuator system is developed and connected seamlessly. Then a control system, taking input from a joystick is developed for the manipulator. The second case study presents a dynamic model of a remotely operated vehicle equipped with a robotic manipulator. First a basic template for this system is developed, according to the method presented in this thesis. The basic template is then extended by integrating an advanced thruster system and a motion control system to the vehicle. Hydrodynamic added mass and damping is also included to both the manipulator and the vehicle, and the manipulator is equipped with a control system. Finally, an interface to the external world through the manipulator end effector is developed. This external interface is used in order to create a simulation where the vehicle and manipulator system lifts an object, relocates it and places it down at the new location. Simulation results from this is provided.


This paper explores notions of elegance and shibui in combinatorial game design, and describes simple computational models for their estimation. Elegance is related to a game's simplicity, clarity, and efficiency, while shibui is a more complex concept from Japanese aesthetics that also incorporates depth. These provide new metrics for quantifying and categorizing games that are largely independent of existing measurements such as tractability and quality. Relevant ideas from Western and Eastern aesthetics are introduced, the meaning of elegance and shibui in combinatorial games is examined, and methods for estimating these values empirically are derived from complexity analyses. Elegance and shibui scores are calculated for a number of example games, for comparison. Preliminary results indicate shibui estimates to be more reliable than elegance estimates.